Hestia Alpha

Post by **th15** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 8:45 am

Lately I've found that this ship is incredibly pantsy. The Enyo may be slower, but it's a far more viable choice than the Hestia Alpha. I've tried boosting the speed of the Hestia Alpha but it's still too fragile to do anything. I'm open to suggestions to improving it.

One change I thought of doing was to spread open some of the wings and put more guns. However, it would still be an incredibly fragile ship.

KV2 · Post by **KV2** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 9:16 am

Why not replaceing the pluse guns on the sides with 1 of the 3 red lazer shooting Turrets on eatch wing?

Boba Fettuccini · Post by **Boba Fettuccini** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:13 pm

replace it altogether.

The Infamous RayCav · Post by **The Infamous RayCav** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:13 pm

I for one am not a big fan of the spread-out wings idea - it risks making the ship overpowered and only makes the fragility situation worse by presenting a bigger target profile.

I propose this:

The pulse guns have been moved to the front of the forward "wings" and in their original place lies gatpulse guns. The fragility is lessened somewhat simply by moving the deflectors inboard a little bit - I noticed, especially during the intro battles, that deflectors go bye-bye really fast because they're too exposed.

I'll also see what else I can find - I'll look through other designs I've come up with to see what can fit the role of the Hestia, or make a new one. Personally, I really like the ship (it pretty much is the signature ship of BF, after all) Also, it now has a point maser instead of a particle gun.

The Infamous RayCav · Post by **The Infamous RayCav** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:38 pm

Ok, here are two designs I quickly came up with. I'll adjust them if suggested:

The Infamous RayCav · Post by **The Infamous RayCav** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 3:06 pm

I went ahead and retooled some of the ships I first introduced in the ship ideas thread (which, admittedly now looking back on them some of them do seem kinda stupid) and modified them to better fit the Hestia role:

Post by **th15** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:29 am

Well, I want something that is a true variant of the Hestia hull. This means that it has the same basic hull structure but fulfills a wildly different role (that no other ship covers) because of a modified weapon layout.

KV2 · Post by **KV2** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 5:33 am

what about a close range dude with ownage close and no far at all?

AkA a monster that can't take much hits?

The Infamous RayCav · Post by **The Infamous RayCav** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:10 am

th15 wrote:Well, I want something that is a true variant of the Hestia hull. This means that it has the same basic hull structure but fulfills a wildly different role (that no other ship covers) because of a modified weapon layout.

Oh, I thought you were looking for a replacement of the original Hestia.

The Infamous RayCav · Post by **The Infamous RayCav** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 7:30 am

Ok, I did a second take:

Captain Trek · Post by **Captain Trek** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 2:58 pm

Oh, I thought you were looking for a replacement of the original Hestia.

There's no way TH'd replace the Hestia all together. The Hestia prime is a great ship and an excellent general-purpose cruiser.

As for the Hestia alpha, though, I'm really not sure what tactical niche it could fill. With the Enyo and Tmouls now on the scene, it seems to me that the Hesitas alpha and gamma have been rendered obselete.

If you really want to keep it though, I have a few ideas that could set it apart from the other destroyers...

1: Make it a contemporary to the Athena. Perhaps the Hesita alpha could be to the Hesita prime what the Athena was to the Hecate... Of course, the alpha still wouldn't be completely unique in that case...

2: Arm it with demeters. People have been asking for a demeter destroyer for ages...

3: Give it a nano matrix and turn it into a repair ship.

4: Give it two or three specail modules and turn it into a 'science ship' like in Star Trek armada, which are poorly armed but have numerous useful specail abilities.

Post by **th15** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 3:26 pm

Converting it into a mini Athena is an interesting idea. But I'm reluctant to do that because I want the Hestia Alpha to be the "salt-of-the-earth" variant. It should be an obsolete model of the Hestia that everyone still loves because of its innate stoutness. Sort of like how Hong's ship is a good design, but not flashy.

And no I will not have nano matrices on ships. This is because they encourage a far too passive style of play. This is fine for Battlestation defence scenarios but for the campaign it's something I'd rather avoid. I am trying to add more modules that enhance ships across the fleet though.

Game_boy · Post by **Game_boy** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 5:24 pm

If you want a variant with a different role, you'll need new weapons.

Post by **th15** » Sun Jul 29, 2007 10:35 pm

Meh, I think the game has plenty of weapons already. Too many weapons and I run the risk of confusing new players when every single ship fires 4 different weapons with different handling characteristics.

KV2 · Post by **KV2** » Mon Jul 30, 2007 1:37 am

What about insted of giveing the ship a new role, why not keep its role of Close/Far range ship and give it better weapons to help do its role better?

You can see I replaced some of them pulse lazer Turrets on the withs with scatter lazers, and put two Gats on the front and that Turret (that I keep forgeting the name) to replace the 3 Hull-ish Turrets altogether, And to keep it to the Alphas style, I still left the Thurster in there and Gave it no Inercetpers at all. What ya think?

O and...Wtf is that?